Dave Jellicoe’sWeb Server Administration

During Dave Jellicoe’s Web Server Administration course we were asked to complete a major project at the end of the term. This project was to include FIVE servers which would communicate with each other from the web server. All these servers are installed in Virtual Environments using VMWare 6.0 Beta.

I chose this piece of work to reflect upon because it displays my skills and knowledge of all platforms and software components. I have been building and maintaining local and remotely hosted dedicated servers. I also have experience installing applications in a clustered environment. It was great to have this opportunity to portray my skills to have multiple server communicate.

Web Server Media Server Database Server Email Server Linux File/FTP Server

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 StandardApache 2.2.2 Web Server

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 StandardMultimedia Server – Streaming Media

Microsoft Window Server 2003 StandardMicrosoft SQL Server 2005

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 StandardExchange 2007 & Web Access

Ubuntu Server 6.2Linux FTP File Server

The web server is running on Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition with Apache 2.2.2. I could have used IIS 6.0, but Apache is my web server of choice.

PHP, MySQL, ASP.NET & Perl are all installed within the Apache installation.

Some PHP extensions had to be installed to allow the PHP & Apache installation to be able to communicate with Microsoft SQL Server 2005.

I also run IIS 6.0 on port 8888 proving that two web servers can run without conflict on one windows installation.

The web server hosts a few HTML, PHP, Image, and ASP.NET files which communicate with the other server in the fleet.

The apache server has been configured and hardened to protect against intruders, malware, and unwanted/unproper script executions.

All files including but not limited to have been modified: php.ini, httpd.conf, /extensions/, mysql.conf, as well as many system files within the Microsoft operating system.

Screen shot of the PHP test document hosted on the Apache web server.

The bottom screen shot is of the project distribution page. This page has links and embedded content which extracts information from the other servers in the fleet.

From the Project Distribution page you can access the PHP, ASP.NET files as well as login to the Exchange 2007 mail server.

Screen shot of the employees PHP script. All the information present is being extracted from the SQL 2005 database which is hosted on another Virtual machine.

From this screen you can add new employees to the database; edit existing employees in the database, remove employees from the database as well as dismissing.

The database server is running Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard with Microsoft SQL Server 2005.

This server is standalone and all web services are disabled to avoid intruders, malware, and unexpected connections from scripts to the database server.

I set up a new user account as well as created a new database. This database holds employee information for company XYZ. Name, address, email, username, and password is held within this database for each employee.

The web server hosts PHP scripts which communicate with the SQL server. The PHP script displays all the employees in the database. You can add, edit, remove and dismiss employees from the online administration panel.

The SQL 2005 Server does NOT host a web server.

Screen shot of the Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio.

This server is strictly for streaming media. This server hosts multimedia files which can then be streamed over the network to the web server.

Windows Server 2003 Standard was used as the operating system.

Microsoft Media Services is used to steam the multimedia files from the media server to the web server.

Basically, this server acts as its own web server for hosting media files only.

Exchange 2007 with Web access is running on Windows Server 2003 Standard edition.

This server has also been hardened to avoid intruders and malware.

The exchange server also acts as a stand-alone web server with only two access points from the web. Administration and Web access are the only two points of entry making this a very secure server.

Although this server is for internal email only, configuring Exchange 2007 for external sending and receiving can be accomplished very easily with the right skills.

I have also successfully completed an Exchange 2003 installation within the Windows 2003 course I attended earlier in the year.

Screenshot of the Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 installation. This installation process is much easier than the previous 2003 edition. Each problem that occurs is noted and a solution is given. There is no need to Google!

Active Directory was also installed on this machine. The AD could have very easily been hosted on another Windows Server 2003 Standard or Enterprise installation.

The Linux file server was configured on a Ubuntu Server installation.

ProFTPd was installed as the FTP server.

Virtual directories were mounted within the Ubuntu installation to the Windows Apache server over the network. Unfortunately this only works on private networks. Network mapping in the college environment would not work.

Virtual directories were used within Ubuntu to map remote directories (e.g. Desktop) to the ftp serving directory listing.

We also customized ProFTPd with welcome messages when a user joins the server.

A public directory was mapped on the Desktop for Anonymous connections to view and download files from.

Everything worked flawlessly.

The hardest part of the project was getting successful authentication between the Apache server and the SQL 2005 Server.

Another issue we had, was with the DNS server configuration on the Exchange 2007 installation. The only way we were able to limit email to internal addresses was to create a DNS server which did not function to send and receive information from the internet service provider. This had to be set-up on a private network. The college network did not work properly with our configuration, but using the College’s DNS servers would have solved this issue.

We were very surprised that the steaming media server only buffered form the beginning and didn’t freeze, glitch or need to buffer again.